In recent years, a method for processing a silver halide color light-sensitive material using a reduced amount of replenishment for the development processing step has been highly desired from the standpoint of simplification of the processing method and prevention of environmental pollution.
The amount of replenishment for continuous color development processing varies depending on the type of color light-sensitive material, and is generally from 700 to 1300 ml per square meter of a color light-sensitive material for photographing being processed.
When the amount of replenishment is reduced, problems generally arise in that photographic performance varies due to the relative increase in the amount of components (for example, halide ions formed upon decomposition of silver halide) contained in the color developing solution which are released from the color light-sensitive material, solution, and in that staining is generated after processing and the photographic performance is changed by deterioration of the color developing solution which is caused by the increase in the retention time of the solution in the processing tank.
In order to solve the former problems of variation in photographic performance such as sensitivity and gradation and particularly the deterioration of granularity at a low exposed area, upon the continuous processing, a method has been proposed for preventing the decrease in sensitivity, stabilizing gradation and minimum density by increasing the processing temperature or pH. However, the attempt to compensate the variation in photographic performance due to halide ion by adjusting the processing temperature or pH generally results in degradation of color balance and an increase in staining.
With respect to the latter problem of deterioration of the color developing solution upon oxidation, the use of hydroxylamine derivatives substituted with an alkyl group have been proposed as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,516, JP-A-63-4234 and JP-A-63-106655 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), in order to increase the stability of the color developing solution. Some of these compounds exhibit a certain degree of preservability in a low level replenishment system for a color developing solution, and do not adversely affect photographic performance and do not stain high silver chloride content type color light-sensitive materials. However, it has been found that the above noted compounds are not effective when processing color light-sensitive materials comprising a silver halide containing silver iodide. Furthermore, other problems occur in that the variation of photographic properties such as minimum density (D.sub.min), sensitivity, granularity and gradation and staining in the uncolored portions is increased. These problems are particularly pronounced in a low level replenishment system.